Friday, November 30, 2012

When I was in New Zealand, the editor we worked with was
this completely awesome British man who lived through the original Punk
explosion and had seen The Sex Pistols and The Clash in person.Needless to say, I demanded he give me child
raising advice.

One of his gems was making your children cook dinner for the
family.It gives them a sense of
accomplishment and the feeling of creating something.He suggested bangers and mash with a nice
glass of Guinness.

This coincided with Diana’s purchase of a children’s
cookbook.It’s this awesome flip book
thing with cool recipes like “Spaghetti Pie” and, um, I’m sure there are others
but we just made Spaghetti Pie.

Diana was working at the wine store (Get your pre-orders in
soon, the doors open in December), so I was in charge of the activity.

Luca requested a chef’s apron and I almost died of
cuteness.I managed to get their hands
washed and things quickly went downhill from there.

I realized almost immediately that my celebrity chef
doppelganger is the abusive, foul mouthed Gordon Ramsay.From the show where he yells at people and
tells them their food is crap.

Oh man did I yell.My
main beef was don’t eat the cheese.Don’t eat the cheese.Don’t eat
the cheese.I’d grade a little pile and four
little hands would snatch it.At one
point, Elijah cut out the middleman and gnawed at a block of Parmesan.Diana found the tooth riddled chunk a few
days later and threw it immediately into the garbage.

The Spaghetti Pie was a little more involved that a 5 year
old and 3 year old could manage.A lot
of chopping and boiling water and a considerable amount of flambé.But the boys did manage to toss a few handfuls
of uneaten cheese into the dish.I
essentially banished them to the TV halfway through prep.

Once out of the oven, I announced it was time to eat their
creation!Luca dove right in and ate two
heaping helpings of Spaghetti Pie.Elijah, on the other hand, immediately pushed his plate away.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Luca turned three yesterday.How in the world does this keep happening?Didn’t we have an agreement?Weren’t we all going to stay one and a half
until I died?

I just love this kid so much.He was genuinely surprised that we got him
presents.He kept saying, “What the
heck?Presents?What the heck?”

Of course, he received a very loud, very bright fire truck
that did not leave his side.He also
received a plastic castle with knights, and swords and a little catapult.This was part of my ten year plan to get him
into Dungeons and Dragons by age 13.Surprisingly, he liked it.Elijah
LOVED it.He actually eschewed messing
around on the computer so he could fight me over the little plastic
drawbridge.And yes, I loved the castle
most of all.

We decided as part of a new family tradition, we would eat
spaghetti and meatballs and a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake by candlelight.

We held hands and each said what we love about Luca.Eli, in a surprising show of brotherly love
said, “I love Luca because he is crazy and funny.”Diana said she loved him because he is trying
hard not to hit and he is her special little guy.

I’ll write what I said last night.

Luca, I love you because you are pure.You are the purest expression of joy and
laughter and insanity.The purest
expression of imagination, passion and play.I love you, pal.I’m so lucky to
be your dad.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!Ours was filled with fun and great food and beauty and well behaved
kids.Which, as you know, makes for
terrible blog entries.

So instead, let’s talk about fire.

Luca is still deeply obsessed with fire engines.He can’t stop talking about all things red,
loud and mustached.I keep meaning to
get him one of those calendars with the shirtless firemen.

He insists on reading fire truck books every night.At the end of them, there’s occasionally a “tips
for fire prevention” section.The usual
junk is there.Don’t play with
matches.Don’t use the stove to light
your cigarette.But they almost all
suggest creating a family plan in case of fire.

This made a lot of sense to me.Because out house was constructed in the
“Tinderbox Style” that was so popular in the 1890’s.

I brought both boys into their room and announced we would
be conducing an official Hamann Family Fire Drill.

I said, “Okay guys.What do you do if you hear the fire alarm?”

Luca said enthusiastically, “We call Iron Man and he’ll come
and he’ll fly in and use his powers to blow out the fire.”

I said, “Yeah, I think Dr. Doom is going to be keeping him
busy for a while, so what do we do if Iron Man is not available?”

After a dumbfounded pause I continued, “We feel the
door.What do we do if the door is hot?”

Luca said, “We call Iron Man…”

I cut him off and explained again that Iron Man will not be
helping.If the door is hot they are not
to open it.And they should put a towel
of blanket under the crack, open the window and wait for us to rescue
them.

This is where Diana and I disagree.She says that she and I most likely be
instantly consumed in any fire in our house, so it should be the boy’s number
one job to escape.She suggested that
they smash the window using the chair of their art table and then scale down
the two floors using some kind of stuffed animal pulley system or leap onto our
threadbare bushes, and meet at the fire hydrant across the street.

Well, that was the worst case scenario regardless.

I asked them what they should do if they feel the door and
it is not, in fact, hot.

“We call Spider Man and he’ll come in with his webs and save
us like this, whoop!Bam!”

I looked at Elijah and said, “You do realize he is your
responsibility in a fire, right?”

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

I was taking a shower yesterday morning when Diana entered
the bathroom.I heard her voice from the
other side of the curtain say, “I’m really sick.”

“Oh, that sucks,” I said.

She continued, “I have to be the room parent at Luca’s PDO class
today.But I think I’m too sick to do
it.”

“Oh, that sucks,” I said.

“I can’t find a replacement.Can you do it today?”

“OH, THAT SUCKS!”I
said.

PDO stand for “Parent’s Day Off.”It’s a day care thing at Luca’s pre-school
that, by law, has to have 2 adults in attendance.Diana meant for me to be one of the adults.

“What do I have to do?”I whined.

“You have to just play with the kids and help out the
teacher and maybe pour some milks for snack time and possibly change a poopy
diaper.”

“No no no no no no no no no no no no no no.There is no way I am changing another kid’s
poopy diaper. What if that poopy diaper belongs to a girl?No.Too bad.They can cancel PDO
today.Ain’t doing it.No way.No how.”

I thought that.

I said, “Okay.”

My anxiety was at its zenith when we entered the
building.I asked Luca to lead me to his
classroom.He looked at me like I was an
idiot and said, “I don’t know where PDO is.”I wept openly.

Eventually, we found the room and met his teacher.A lovely woman who had boundless energy and
enthusiasm.I realized my role was
simply to maintain the legal two adult status.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

My week back from vacation/work has been surprisingly
busy.And I spent most of the day
yesterday doing manual labor in the wine store.

Oh yeah.Did you know
Diana is opening a wine store?It’s
called Winegoddess and it’s in Evanston and you really should go Decebver1.Seriously.

Where was I?Oh yeah,
not being with my family.When I got
home from building wine racks, Diana made a surprising and awesome suggestion.

“Let’s get dressed up and go to Red Lobster as a family!”

Now, did she suggest Red Lobster out of some ironic
hipsterness?Or because she has fond
memories from her childhood?Or because
Red Lobster was about as nice as a restaurant we could comfortably bring two
kids who have yet to leave the throwing food stage?

Probably all three.

Before we left, Elijah announced he would be wearing a
tie.“To make the night more special.”

I asked him if I should go put on a tie.He sensed I wasn’t going to take it seriously
and declined my offer.

On the way there, we reminded the boys about the basics of
fine dining:

It is impolite to stand on the book seats and peer into your
neighbor’s table.It is impolite to
throw your popcorn shrimp into your neighbor’s table.Under no circumstances are you allowed to
stick your hand into the live lobster tank.Why add insult to injury?

Red Lobster was surprisingly busy at 5pm.And no one in attendance shared our hipster
irony.

Elijah immediately ordered a Pina Colada.The night pretty much went downhill from
there.In the totally HamannEggs awesome
way you’ve come to expect.The boys
ordered $45 worth of food and combined to eat 3 butterfly shrimp.More for me.Luca became fascinated by our neighbor’s table and essentially joined
them for the second half of their meal.

We way overtipped because, well, we turned our table into a
nuclear waste site.I imagine some poor
busboy is still cleaning out the cheesy bread crumbs from the booth crack.I’ve never been one to take photos of food
and post them to social media.But
seriously.Look at that table.

We made it home just in time for bed and Luca spent most of
the entire night howling in terror.I
think 1.5 butterfly shrimp did not agree with him.Or it could have been the Pina Coladas.